Vermont’s Historic Past ‘Barn Again’

Bill and Jenny Nelson lose count of the tourists who stop in front of their farm each autumn to point cameras at their fading, old barn set against rolling countryside.

They understand the attraction. It is a scene, after all, that defines the state as much as does a town common surrounded by white clapboard buildings.

But barns are disappearing from those vistas as farms go out of business or old buildings are replaced by new ones designed for modern farming.

“These historic barns and agricultural buildings serve as a physical, visual link with the heritage of the state,” said Tom Visser of the University of Vermont’s historic preservation program. “Without these buildings, that link with the past would be lost.”

So the state government has launched a unique program that pays to help preserve barns just as it helps save historic town halls, churches and other public buildings.

The Nelsons’ 1880 late bank barn, as its design is known, was one of six in the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation’s first round of barn-restoration grants.

The Nelsons will match the $2,100 with an equal amount of their own money to fix the foundation and replace window sashes.

“The barn’s basically in real good shape otherwise,” said Bill Nelson, the seventh generation running his farm. “We certainly don’t want to tear it down.”

Preservationists don’t want him to either. They desperately want to help protect Vermont from the development pressures that prompted the National Trust for Historic Preservation to place the entire state on its list of most endangered places.

The rate at which barns are disappearing “is alarming, and the loss of barns is a loss of an economic base and lifestyle,” said Mary Jo Llewellyn, who coordinates the barn-grant program.

The sense of history that the barns represent is irreplaceable, said one state senator who helped double the funding for the barn-grant program to $75,000 this year, its second.

“There are a lot of people who agree that there are certain barns that represent the fiber of Vermont as it was 200 years ago,” said state Sen. Vincent Illuzzi.

A barn-preservation movement got under way nationally about six years ago when the National Trust created its Barn Again program. Through it, countless farmers and private organizations have learned how to save barns.

But never before has a state committed taxpayer dollars, which is what makes Vermont’s effort unique, said Mary Humstone, the director of Barn Again.

And it doesn’t have to cost a lot. The biggest grant the state made in its first year was $10,000 for emergency stabilization of four interconnecting barns in Cornwall dating to 1787.

“There are very important and critical things that can be done that will make a profound impact on the longevity of the buildings,” Visser said. “Often these are minor structural repairs or repairs to the roof that may only cost $1,000 or $2,000.”